The firsts keep coming for the Moscrop senior boys soccer team.
Fresh off of winning the school’s first senior boys soccer league banner, the Panthers chalked up another heady achievement this week, capturing a prized berth to the AAA provincial tournament by out-lasting league rival New West 2-1 in the inaugural Fraser North zone semifinal on Monday.
They face No. 2-ranked Dr. Charles Best today (Thursday, 3 p.m.) at Coquitlam Town Centre for the zone title.
“We checked the box and checked the box, it’s just been one first after another,” remarked Moscrop head coach Colleen Gaskell. “The guys were so excited to win the (Burnaby-New West) league banner (last week) that they spent 40 minutes on the field taking pictures and celebrating.
“To celebrate another first just a week later was incredible.”
A side effect of their current streak has seen the Panthers rise up the B.C. AAA chart the past month, rising from honourable mention up to fourth overall in the top-10.
The semifinal was a showdown of familiar foes. Daniel Milkovic gave Moscrop the first lead but the Hyacks tied it. Stepping up with another clutch goal was offensive standout Pouria Maghali, who beat the New West netminder in the second half with a header that proved to be the game winner.
“It was a really rough game and honestly I was happy to get it over,” noted Gaskell.
A week earlier, they edged Burnaby Central 2-1 for the league banner.
The Panthers, who started the season unranked, began the zone tournament with a 3-1 decision over Riverside.
Providing terrific netminding throughout the recent run was Aqeel Allidina.
“He’s an amazing goalie and kept us in a lot of these games.”
Drawing the Dr. Charles Best Blue Devils in Thursday’s final, Gaskell will be following the game via text updates and a Facetime visit at halftime, as she’s in Winnipeg cheering on her daughter, who is a member of Team B.C., at the major midget hockey national championships.
“We don’t know a lot about Charles Best but we expect they’ll be strong,” she said. “But on the other hand they don’t know much about us, either.
“This is already far past what I imagined. You always have goals at the start of the season to go as far as you can, but we’ve exceeded all the previous accomplishments. We’ve never won the (Burnaby-New West) league banner, we’ve never been ranked, and we’ve never been to the B.C.s. This is just an amazing season.”
The 16-team provincial championships are slated to start Nov. 21 at Burnaby Lake West complex.
